Why were the Chechens evicted? What are the reasons for the eviction of Caucasians by Stalin

Floors 09.02.2024

Floors

Almost everyone knows about the fact of the deportation of Chechens and Ingush, but few know the true reason for this relocation.

The fact is that since January 1940, an underground organization has been operating in the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic Khasan Israilov, which set as its goal the separation of the North Caucasus from the USSR and the creation on its territory of a federation of a state of all the mountain peoples of the Caucasus, except for the Ossetians. The latter, as well as the Russians living in the region, according to Israilov and his associates, should have been completely destroyed. Khasan Israilov himself was a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and at one time graduated from the Communist University of the Working People of the East named after I.V. Stalin.

Israilov began his political activity in 1937 with a denunciation of the leadership of the Chechen-Ingush Republic. Initially, Israilov and eight of his associates themselves went to prison for libel, but soon the local leadership of the NKVD changed, Israilov, Avtorkhanov, Mamakaev and his other like-minded people were released, and in their place were imprisoned those against whom they had written a denunciation.

However, Israilov did not rest on this. At a time when the British were preparing an attack on the USSR, he created an underground organization with the goal of raising an uprising against Soviet power at the moment when the British landed in Baku, Derbent, Poti and Sukhum. However, British agents demanded that Israilov begin independent actions even before the British attack on the USSR. On instructions from London, Israilov and his gang were to attack the Grozny oil fields and disable them in order to create a shortage of fuel in the Red Army units fighting in Finland. The operation was scheduled for January 28, 1940. Now in Chechen mythology this bandit raid has been elevated to the rank of a national uprising. In fact, there was only an attempt to set fire to the oil storage facility, which was repulsed by the facility’s security. Israilov, with the remnants of his gang, switched to an illegal situation - holed up in mountain villages, the bandits, for the purpose of self-supply, from time to time attacked food stores.

However, with the beginning of the war, Israilov’s foreign policy orientation changed dramatically - now he began to hope for help from the Germans. Israilov’s representatives crossed the front line and handed the German intelligence representative a letter from their leader. On the German side, Israilov began to be supervised by military intelligence. The curator was the colonel Osman Gube.

This man, an Avar by nationality, was born in the Buynaksky region of Dagestan, served in the Dagestan regiment of the Caucasian native division. In 1919 he joined the army of General Denikin, in 1921 he emigrated from Georgia to Trebizond, and then to Istanbul. In 1938, Gube joined the Abwehr, and with the outbreak of war he was promised the position of head of the “political police” of the North Caucasus.

German paratroopers were sent to Chechnya, including Gube himself, and a German radio transmitter began operating in the forests of the Shali region, communicating between the Germans and the rebels. The first action of the rebels was an attempt to disrupt mobilization in Checheno-Ingushetia. During the second half of 1941, the number of deserters amounted to 12 thousand 365 people, evading conscription - 1093. During the first mobilization of Chechens and Ingush into the Red Army in 1941, it was planned to form a cavalry division from their composition, but when it was recruited, only 50% (4247) were recruited people) from the existing conscript contingent, and 850 people from those already recruited upon arrival at the front immediately went over to the enemy. In total, during the three years of the war, 49,362 Chechens and Ingush deserted from the ranks of the Red Army, another 13,389 evaded conscription, for a total of 62,751 people. Only 2,300 people died at the fronts and went missing (and the latter include those who went over to the enemy). The Buryat people, who were half smaller in number and were not threatened by the German occupation, lost 13 thousand people at the front, and the Ossetians, who were one and a half times smaller than the Chechens and Ingush, lost almost 11 thousand. At the same time when the decree on resettlement was published, there were only 8,894 Chechens, Ingush and Balkars in the army. That is, ten times more deserted than fought.

Two years after his first raid, on January 28, 1942, Israilov organized the OPKB - “Special Party of Caucasian Brothers,” which aims to “create in the Caucasus a free fraternal Federative Republic of the states of the fraternal peoples of the Caucasus under the mandate of the German Empire.” He later renamed this party the “National Socialist Party of the Caucasian Brothers.” In February 1942, when the Nazis occupied Taganrog, an associate of Israilov, the former chairman of the Forestry Council of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Mairbek Sheripov, raised an uprising in the villages of Shatoi and Itum-Kale. The villages were soon liberated, but some of the rebels went to the mountains, from where they carried out partisan attacks. So, on June 6, 1942, at about 17:00 in the Shatoi region, a group of armed bandits on the way to the mountains fired at a truck with traveling Red Army soldiers in one gulp. Of the 14 people traveling in the car, three were killed and two were wounded. The bandits disappeared into the mountains. On August 17, Mairbek Sheripov’s gang actually destroyed the regional center of the Sharoevsky district.

In order to prevent the bandits from seizing oil production and oil refining facilities, one NKVD division had to be introduced into the republic, and also during the most difficult period The battle for the Caucasus remove the military units of the Red Army from the front.

However, it took a long time to catch and neutralize the gangs - the bandits, warned by someone, avoided ambushes and withdrew their units from the attacks. Conversely, targets that were attacked were often left unguarded. So, just before the attack on the regional center of the Sharoevsky district, an operational group and a military unit of the NKVD, which were intended to protect the regional center, were withdrawn from the regional center. Subsequently, it turned out that the bandits were protected by the head of the department for combating banditry of the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Lieutenant Colonel GB Aliyev. And later, among the things of the murdered Israilov, a letter from the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs of Checheno-Ingushetia, Sultan Albogachiev, was found. It was then that it became clear that all Chechens and Ingush (and Albogachiev was Ingush), regardless of their position, were dreaming of how to harm the Russians, and they were doing harm very actively.

However, on November 7, 1942, on the 504th day of the war, when Hitler’s troops in Stalingrad tried to break through our defenses in the Glubokaya Balka area between the Red October and Barrikady factories, in Checheno-Ingushetia, by the forces of the NKVD troops with the support of individual units of the 4th Kuban Cavalry Corps carried out a special operation to eliminate gangs. Mairbek Sheripov was killed in the battle, and Gube was captured on the night of January 12, 1943 near the village of Akki-Yurt.

However, bandit attacks continued. They continued thanks to the support of the bandits by the local population and local authorities. Despite the fact that from June 22, 1941 to February 23, 1944, 3,078 gang members were killed in Checheno-Ingushtia And 1,715 people were captured, it was clear that as long as someone gave the bandits food and shelter, it would be impossible to defeat banditry. That is why on January 31, 1944, the USSR State Defense Committee Resolution No. 5073 was adopted on the abolition of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the deportation of its population to Central Asia and Kazakhstan.

On February 23, 1944, Operation Lentil began, during which 180 trains of 65 wagons each were sent from Checheno-Ingushenia with a total of 493,269 people resettled. 20,072 firearms were seized. While resisting, 780 Chechens and Ingush were killed, and 2016 were arrested for possession of weapons and anti-Soviet literature.

6,544 people managed to hide in the mountains. But many of them soon descended from the mountains and surrendered. Israilov himself was mortally wounded in battle on December 15, 1944.

On the night of February 24, 1944, Operation Lentil began - the mass expulsion of Chechens and Ingush from the North Caucasus, which became one of the most serious crimes of the Stalinist regime.

Desertion

Until 1938, Chechens were not systematically drafted into the army; the annual draft was no more than 300-400 people. Since 1938, conscription has been significantly increased. In 1940-41, it was carried out in full accordance with the law “On General Military Duty,” but the results were disappointing. During the additional mobilization in October 1941 of persons born in 1922, out of 4,733 conscripts, 362 people evaded reporting to recruiting stations. By decision of the State Defense Committee, from December 1941 to January 1942, the 114th national division was formed from the indigenous population in the Chi ASSR. According to data at the end of March 1942, 850 people managed to desert from it. The second mass mobilization in Checheno-Ingushetia began on March 17, 1942 and was supposed to end on the 25th. The number of persons subject to mobilization was 14,577 people. However, by the appointed time, only 4887 were mobilized, of which only 4395 were sent to military units, that is, 30% of what was allocated according to the order. In this regard, the mobilization period was extended until April 5, but the number of mobilized people increased only to 5,543 people.

Uprisings

The policies of the Soviet government, primarily the collectivization of agriculture, caused mass discontent in the North Caucasus, which repeatedly resulted in armed uprisings.

From the moment of the establishment of Soviet power in the North Caucasus until the start of the Great Patriotic War, 12 major anti-Soviet armed uprisings took place in Checheno-Ingushetia alone, in which from 500 to 5,000 people took part.

But to speak, as has been done for many years in party and KGB documents, about the “almost universal participation” of Chechens and Ingush in anti-Soviet gangs, of course, is absolutely groundless.

OPKB and ChGNSPO

In January 1942, the “Special Party of Caucasian Brothers” (OPKB) was created, uniting representatives of 11 peoples of the Caucasus (but operating mainly in Checheno-Ingushetia).

The program documents of the OPKB set the goal of fighting “Bolshevik barbarism and Russian despotism.” The party's coat of arms depicted fighters for the liberation of the Caucasus, one of whom was killing a poisonous snake, and the other was cutting the throat of a pig with a saber.

Israilov later renamed his organization the National Socialist Party of the Caucasian Brothers (NSPKB).

According to the NKVD, the number of this organization reached five thousand people. Another large anti-Soviet group on the territory of Checheno-Ingushetia was the Chechen-Gorsk National Socialist Underground Organization (ChGNSPO) created in November 1941 under the leadership of Mairbek Sheripov. Before the war, Sheripov was the chairman of the Forest Industry Council of the Chi ASSR; in the fall of 1941, he opposed Soviet power and managed to unite under his command the detachments operating in the Shatoevsky, Cheberloevsky and part of the Itum-Kalinsky districts.

In the first half of 1942, Sheripov wrote a program for the ChGNSPO, in which he outlined his ideological platform, goals and objectives. Mairbek Sheripov, like Israilov, proclaimed himself an ideological fighter against Soviet power and Russian despotism. But among his loved ones, he did not hide the fact that he was driven by pragmatic calculations, and the ideals of the struggle for freedom of the Caucasus were only declarative. Before leaving for the mountains, Sharipov openly declared to his supporters: “My brother, Sheripov Aslanbek, in 1917 foresaw the overthrow of the Tsar, so he began to fight on the side of the Bolsheviks. I also know that Soviet power has come to an end, so I want to meet Germany halfway.”

"Lentils"

On the night of February 24, 1944, NKVD troops surrounded populated areas with tanks and trucks, blocking all exits. Beria reported to Stalin about the start of Operation Lentil.

The relocation began at dawn on February 23. By lunchtime, more than 90 thousand people were loaded into freight cars. As Beria reported, there was almost no resistance, and if it did arise, the instigators were shot on the spot.

On February 25, Beria sent a new report: “The deportation is proceeding normally.” 352 thousand 647 people boarded 86 trains and were sent to their destination. Chechens who fled into the forest or mountains were caught by NKVD troops and shot. During this operation, monstrous scenes occurred. The residents of the village of Khaibakh were driven into a stable by security officers and set on fire. More than 700 people were burned alive. The migrants were allowed to take with them 500 kilograms of cargo per family.

The special settlers had to hand over livestock and grain - in exchange they received livestock and grain from local authorities at their new place of residence. There were 45 people in each carriage (for comparison, the Germans were allowed to take a ton of property during deportation, and there were 40 people in each carriage without personal belongings). The party nomenclature and the Muslim elite traveled in the last echelon, which consisted of normal carriages.

Heroes

The obvious excess of Stalin's measures is obvious today. Thousands of Chechens and Ingush gave their lives at the front and were awarded orders and medals for their military exploits. Machine gunner Khanpasha Nuradilov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. A Chechen-Ingush cavalry regiment under the command of Major Visaitov reached the Elbe. The title of Hero, to which he was nominated, was awarded to him only in 1989.

Sniper Abukhadzhi Idrisov destroyed 349 fascists, Sergeant Idrisov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Red Star, and was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

Chechen sniper Akhmat Magomadov became famous in the battles near Leningrad, where he was called “the fighter of the German occupiers.” He has more than 90 Germans on his account.

Khanpasha Nuradilov destroyed 920 fascists at the fronts, captured 7 enemy machine guns and personally captured 12 fascists. For his military exploits, Nuradilov was awarded the Order of the Red Star and Red Banner. In April 1943, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. During the war years, 10 Vainakhs became Heroes of the Soviet Union. 2,300 Chechens and Ingush died in the war. It should be noted: military personnel - Chechens and Ingush, representatives of other peoples repressed in 1944 - were recalled from the front to the labor armies, and at the end of the war they, the “victorious soldiers,” were sent into exile.

In a new place

The attitude towards special settlers in 1944-1945 in places of settlement and at work was difficult and was characterized by injustice and numerous violations of their rights by local authorities. These violations were expressed in relation to the calculation of wages and the refusal to issue bonuses for labor. Work to improve the economic structure was hampered by bureaucratic delays. According to the North Kazakhstan Regional Department of Economic Development, as of January 1, 1946, there were special settlers from the North Caucasus in the region: “Chechen families 3,637, or 14,766 people, Ingush families 1,234, or 5,366 people, total families of special settlers in the region were 4,871, or 20,132 people

Return

In 1957, the peoples of the North Caucasus were able to return to their homeland. The return took place under difficult conditions; not everyone wanted to give their houses and household goods to the “old-timers.” Every now and then armed clashes broke out. The forced resettlement of Chechens and Ingush not only caused them enormous human losses and material damage, but also had negative consequences on the national consciousness of these peoples. We can say that the deportation of 1944 became one of the reasons for the Chechen wars.

At 2 a.m. on February 23, 1944, the most famous ethnic deportation operation began - the resettlement of residents of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, formed ten years earlier by uniting the Chechen and Ingush Autonomous Regions.

There were deportations of “punished peoples” before this - Germans and Finns, Kalmyks and Karachais, and after - Balkars, Crimean Tatars and Greeks, Bulgarians and Armenians living in Crimea, as well as Meskhetian Turks from Georgia. But Operation Lentil to evict almost half a million Vainakhs - Chechens and Ingush - became the largest.

The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR motivated the decision to deport Chechens and Ingush by the fact that “during the Great Patriotic War, especially during the actions of the Nazi troops in the Caucasus, many Chechens and Ingush betrayed their Motherland, went over to the side of the fascist occupiers, and joined the ranks of saboteurs and intelligence officers , thrown by the Germans into the rear of the Red Army, created armed gangs at the behest of the Germans to fight against Soviet power, and also taking into account that many Chechens and Ingush for a number of years participated in armed uprisings against Soviet power and for a long time, being not engaged in honest labor, carry out bandit raids on collective farms in neighboring regions, rob and kill Soviet people.”

These two peoples had difficult relations with the authorities even before the war. Until 1938, there was not even a systematic conscription of Chechens and Ingush into the Red Army - no more than 300-400 people were conscripted annually.

Then the conscription was significantly increased, and in 1940-1941 it was carried out in full accordance with the law on universal conscription.

“The attitude of the Chechens and Ingush towards Soviet power was clearly expressed in desertion and evasion of conscription into the Red Army. During the first mobilization in August 1941, out of 8,000 people subject to conscription, 719 people deserted. In October 1941, out of 4,733 people, 362 evaded conscription. In January 1942, during the formation of the national division, only 50 percent of the personnel were recruited. In March 1942, out of 14,576 people, 13,560 deserted and evaded service, went underground, went to the mountains and joined gangs. In 1943, out of 3,000 volunteers, the number of deserters was 1,870,” wrote L.P. in a memo. Beria's deputy people's commissar, state security commissioner of the 2nd rank B.Z. Kobulov.

According to him, there were 38 sects in the republic, numbering over 20 thousand people. These were mainly hierarchical organized Muslim religious brotherhoods of murids.

“They are conducting active anti-Soviet work, sheltering bandits and German paratroopers. When the front line approached in August-September 1942, 80 members of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) quit their jobs and fled, including 16 leaders of district committees of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 8 senior officials of district executive committees and 14 chairmen of collective farms,” wrote Bogdan Kobulov.

After the start of the war, the mobilization of the Chechens and Ingush was actually thwarted - “believing and hoping that the USSR would lose the war, many mullahs and teip authorities agitated for evasion of military service or desertion,” says the collection of documents “Stalin’s Deportations. 1928-1953".

Due to mass desertion and evasion from service, in the spring of 1942, by order of the USSR NGO, the conscription of Chechens and Ingush into the army was canceled.

In 1943, the conscription of approximately 3 thousand volunteers was authorized, but two-thirds of them deserted.

Because of this, it was not possible to form the 114th Chechen-Ingush Cavalry Division - it had to be reorganized into a regiment, however, even after this, desertion was widespread.

According to data as of November 20, 1942, in the Northern group of the Transcaucasian Front there were all 90 Chechens and Ingush - 0.04%.

Heroes of War

At the same time, many Vainakhs who went to the front showed their best side and contributed to the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War in 1941-1945.

The names of three Chechens and one Ingush are immortalized in the Memorial Complex of the Defenders of the Brest Fortress. But, according to various sources, from 250 to 400 people from Checheno-Ingushetia took part in the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress, which became a symbol of fortitude and courage. Together with other units of the Red Army, the 255th Chechen-Ingush Regiment and a separate cavalry division fought in Brest.

One of the last and staunch defenders of the Brest Fortress was Magomed Uzuev, but only in 1996, by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation, was he posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation. Magomed’s brother Visa Uzuev also fought in Brest.

Two defenders of the Brest Fortress are still alive in Chechnya - Akhmed Khasiev and Adam Malaev

Sniper Abukhaji Idrisov destroyed 349 fascists - an entire battalion. Sergeant Idrisov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Red Star, and was given the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

Chechen sniper Akhmat Magomadov became famous in the battles near Leningrad, where he was called “the fighter of the German occupiers.” There are more than 90 Germans on his side.

During the war years, 10 Vainakhs became Heroes of the Soviet Union. 2,300 Chechens and Ingush died in the war.

Anti-Soviet protests

With the beginning of the war, gangs in the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic became more active. In October 1941, two separate uprisings took place, covering the Shatoevsky, Itum-Kalinsky, Vedensky, Cheberloevsky and Galanchozhsky districts of the republic. At the beginning of 1942, the leaders of the uprisings, Khasan Israilov and Mairbek Sheripov, united, creating the “Provisional People's Revolutionary Government of Checheno-Ingushetia.” In its statements, this rebel "government" viewed Hitler as an ally in the fight against Stalin.

As the front line approached the border of the republic in 1942, anti-Soviet forces began to act more actively. In August-September 1942, collective farms were dissolved in almost all mountainous regions of Chechnya, and several thousand people, including dozens of Soviet functionaries, joined the uprising of Israilov and Sheripov.

After the appearance of German landing forces in Chechnya in the fall of 1942, the NKVD accused Israilov and Sheripov of creating pro-fascist parties, the National Socialist Party of the Caucasian Brothers and the Chechen-Mountain National Socialist Underground Organization.

In the eight teams of fascist paratroopers with a total number of 77 people dropped onto the territory of the republic, the majority were recruited Chechens and Ingush. But there was no widespread participation of Chechens and Ingush in anti-Soviet gangs. The NKVD registered 150-200 gangs of 2-3 thousand bandits on the territory of Checheno-Ingushetia. This is approximately 0.5% of the population of Chechnya. From the beginning of the war until January 1944, 55 gangs and 973 bandits were liquidated in the republic, 1901 bandits, fascists and their accomplices were arrested.

"Lentils"

Operation Lentil began preparations in October-November 1943. Initially, resettlement was planned in the Novosibirsk and Omsk regions, in the Altai and Krasnoyarsk territories. But then it was decided to resettle the Chechens and Ingush to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

On January 29, 1944, the head of the NKVD Lavrentiy Beria approved the “Instructions on the procedure for the eviction of Chechens and Ingush.” On February 1, the issue was discussed by the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Disagreements arose only over the timing of the start of the operation.

Beria personally led the operation. On February 17, 1944, he reported from Grozny that preparations were being completed and 459,486 people were to be evicted. The operation was designed to last eight days, and 19 thousand operatives of the NKVD, NKGB and SMERSH and about 100 thousand officers and soldiers of the NKVD troops were involved in it.

On February 22, Beria met with the republic’s top leadership and senior clergy and told them about the government’s decision and “the motives that formed the basis for this decision. After this message, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars Mollaev “teared up, but promised to pull himself together and promised to fulfill all the tasks that would be given to him in connection with the eviction,” Beria reported to Stalin.

Beria suggested that the highest clergy of Checheno-Ingushetia “carry out the necessary work among the population through the mullahs and other local “authorities” associated with them.”

The influence of the mullahs was enormous. Their preaching, wrote the USSR Minister of Internal Affairs N.P. Dundorov in the mid-1950s, could improve labor discipline and even double labor productivity.

“Both the party-Soviet and clergy we employ have been promised some resettlement benefits (the norm of things allowed for export will be slightly increased),” Beria said.

The operation, according to his assessment, began successfully - 333,739 people were removed from populated areas within 24 hours, of which 176,950 were loaded onto trains. A faster eviction was prevented by heavy snow that fell on the afternoon of February 23.

Nevertheless, by February 29 (1944 was a leap year), 478,479 people were evicted and loaded into wagons, including 91,250 Ingush and 387,229 Chechens.

“177 trains have been loaded, of which 159 trains have already been sent to the place of the new settlement,” Beria reported the results of the operation.

During the operation, 2,016 “people of anti-Soviet element” were arrested, and more than 20 thousand firearms were confiscated.

“The population bordering Checheno-Ingushetia reacted favorably to the eviction of Chechens and Ingush,” said the head of the NKVD.

Residents of the republic were allowed to take with them 500 kilograms of cargo per family. The special settlers had to hand over livestock and grain - in exchange they received livestock and grain from local authorities at their new place of residence.

There were 45 people in each carriage (for comparison, the Germans were allowed to take a ton of property during deportation, and there were 40 people in each carriage without personal belongings). The party nomenclature and the Muslim elite traveled in the last echelon, which consisted of normal carriages.

And just months later, in the summer of 1944, several spiritual leaders of the Chechens were summoned to the republic to help persuade the gangs and Chechens who had evaded deportation to stop resisting.

Incidents

The deportation did not take place without incidents - according to various sources, from 27 to 780 people were killed, and 6,544 residents of the republic managed to evade deportation. The People's Commissariat of State Security reported "a number of ugly facts of violation of revolutionary legality, arbitrary executions of old Chechen women who remained after the resettlement, the sick, the crippled, who could not follow."

According to a document published by the Democracy Foundation, in one of the villages three people were killed, including an eight-year-old boy, in another - “five old women”, in the third - “according to unspecified data” “arbitrary execution of the sick and crippled up to 60 people "

In recent years, there have been reports of the burning of from 200 to 600-700 people in the Galanchozhsky district. Two commissions were created to investigate the operation in this area - in 1956 and 1990, but the criminal case was never brought to an end. The official report of the 3rd rank State Security Commissioner M. Gvishiani, who led the operation in this area, spoke only of several dozen killed or died along the way.

As for the mortality of displaced persons, as the leadership of the NKVD convoy troops reported, 56 people were born on the way to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, “1,272 people died, which is 2.6 people per 1,000 transported. According to a certificate from the Statistical Directorate of the RSFSR, the mortality rate in the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1943 was 13.2 people per 1,000 inhabitants.” The causes of mortality were “the advanced and early age of those resettled,” the presence of chronic diseases among those resettled,” and the presence of physically weak people.

Toponymic repressions

On March 7, 1944, the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic itself was liquidated. In place of the areas inhabited by Chechens, the Grozny Okrug was created as part of the Stavropol Territory.

Part of the territory of the republic was divided between Georgia and North Ossetia. All Ingush place names were repressed - they were replaced with Russian and Ossetian names.

Opinion of historians

Despite a number of incidents, in general the eviction of the whole passed calmly and did not push the Chechens and Ingush into a terrorist war, although, according to historians, there were all the possibilities for this.

Some historians explain this by saying that the harsh punishment was at the same time gentle towards the people. According to the laws of war, desertion and evasion from military service deserved severe punishment. But the authorities did not shoot the men, “cut off the roots of the people,” but evicted everyone. At the same time, party and Komsomol organizations were not disbanded, and recruitment into the army was not stopped.

However, most historians consider it unacceptable to punish an entire people for the crime of some of its representatives. Deportations of peoples as repressions were extrajudicial in nature and were aimed not at a specific person, but at a whole group of people, and a very large one at that. Masses of people were torn out of their usual habitat, deprived of their homeland, and placed in a new environment, thousands of kilometers from the previous one. Representatives of these peoples were evicted not only from their historical homeland, but also from all other cities and regions, and demobilized from the army.

Rehabilitation and return

The ban on returning to their homeland for Chechens and Ingush was lifted on January 9, 1957 by decree of the Presidiums of the Supreme Soviets of the USSR and the RSFSR. These decrees restored Chechen-Ingush autonomy, and an Organizing Committee was created to organize repatriation.

Immediately after the decree, tens of thousands of Chechens and Ingush in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan quit their jobs, sold off their property and began to seek emigration to their previous place of residence. The authorities were forced in the summer of 1957 to temporarily suspend the return of Chechens and Ingush to their homeland.

One of the reasons was the tense situation developing in the North Caucasus - local authorities were not prepared for the massive return and conflicts between the Vainakhs and settlers from Central Russia and land-poor regions of the North Caucasus who occupied their homes and lands in 1944.

The restoration of autonomy provided for a new, complex redrawing of the administrative-territorial division of the region. Outside the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was the Prigorodny district, which remained part of the North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and at the end of the 1980s turned into a hotbed of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict.

The authorities planned to return 17 thousand families to the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1957, but twice as many returned, and many sought to be placed in exactly the same villages and houses in which they lived before deportation. This led to ethnic confrontation. In particular, in August 1958, after a domestic murder, riots broke out, about a thousand people seized the regional party committee in Grozny and staged a pogrom there. 32 people were injured, including four employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, two civilians died and 10 were hospitalized, almost 60 people were arrested.

Most Chechens and Ingush returned to their homeland only in the spring of 1959.

The Chechens and Ingush were completely rehabilitated according to the RSFSR law of April 26, 1991 “On the rehabilitation of repressed peoples.” The law provided for “the recognition and implementation of their right to restore the territorial integrity that existed before the unconstitutional policy of forcibly redrawing borders, to restore the national-state entities that existed before their abolition, as well as to compensate for damage caused by the state.”

At the same time, the law provided that the rehabilitation process should not infringe on the rights and legitimate interests of citizens currently living in these territories.

Almost everyone knows about the fact of the deportation of Chechens and Ingush, but few know the true reason for this relocation.

The fact is that since January 1940, the underground organization of Khasan Israilov operated in the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, whose goal was to separate the North Caucasus from the USSR and create on its territory a federation of a state of all the mountain peoples of the Caucasus, except the Ossetians. The latter, as well as the Russians living in the region, according to Israilov and his associates, should have been completely destroyed. Khasan Israilov himself was a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and at one time graduated from the Communist University of the Working People of the East named after I.V. Stalin.

Khasan Israilov

However, Israilov did not rest on this. During the period when the British were preparing an attack on the USSR (for more details, see the article), he creates an underground organization with the goal of raising an uprising against Soviet power at the moment when the British land in Baku, Derbent, Poti and Sukhum.

However, British agents demanded that Israilov begin independent actions even before the British attack on the USSR. On instructions from London, Israilov and his gang were to attack the Grozny oil fields and disable them in order to create a shortage of fuel in the Red Army units fighting in Finland. The operation was scheduled for January 28, 1940. Now in Chechen mythology this bandit raid has been elevated to the rank of a national uprising.

In fact, there was only an attempt to set fire to the oil storage facility, which was repulsed by the facility’s security. Israilov, with the remnants of his gang, switched to an illegal situation - holed up in mountain villages, the bandits, for the purpose of self-supply, from time to time attacked food stores.

Osman Gube

Chechen volunteer from the eastern battalions of the Wehrmacht.

In total, during the three years of the war, 49,362 Chechens and Ingush deserted from the ranks of the Red Army, another 13,389 evaded conscription, for a total of 62,751 people. Only 2,300 people died at the fronts and went missing (and the latter include those who went over to the enemy). The Buryat people, who were half smaller in number and were not threatened by the German occupation, lost 13 thousand people at the front, and the Ossetians, who were one and a half times smaller than the Chechens and Ingush, lost almost 11 thousand. At the same time when the decree on resettlement was published, there were only 8,894 Chechens, Ingush and Balkars in the army. That is, ten times more deserted than fought.

In order to prevent bandits from seizing oil production and oil refining facilities, one NKVD division had to be brought into the republic, and during the most difficult period of the Battle of the Caucasus, military units of the Red Army had to be removed from the front.

However, bandit attacks continued. They continued thanks to the support of the bandits by the local population and local authorities. Despite the fact that from June 22, 1941 to February 23, 1944, 3,078 gang members were killed and 1,715 people were captured in Checheno-Ingushtia, it was clear that as long as someone gave the bandits food and shelter, it would be impossible to defeat banditry. That is why on January 31, 1944, the USSR State Defense Committee Resolution No. 5073 was adopted on the abolition of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the deportation of its population to Central Asia and Kazakhstan.

On February 23, 1944, Operation Lentil began, during which 180 trains of 65 wagons each were sent from Checheno-Ingushenia with a total of 493,269 people resettled. 20,072 firearms were seized. While resisting, 780 Chechens and Ingush were killed, and 2016 were arrested for possession of weapons and anti-Soviet literature.

6,544 people managed to hide in the mountains. But many of them soon descended from the mountains and surrendered. Israilov himself was mortally wounded in battle on December 15, 1944.

On the night of February 24, 1944, Operation Lentil began - the mass expulsion of Chechens and Ingush from the North Caucasus, which became one of the most serious crimes of the Stalinist regime.

Desertion

Uprisings

The policies of the Soviet government, primarily the collectivization of agriculture, caused mass discontent in the North Caucasus, which repeatedly resulted in armed uprisings.

OPKB and ChGNSPO

In January 1942, the “Special Party of Caucasian Brothers” (OPKB) was created, uniting representatives of 11 peoples of the Caucasus (but operating mainly in Checheno-Ingushetia).

Israilov later renamed his organization the National Socialist Party of the Caucasian Brothers (NSPKB).

"Lentils"

On the night of February 24, 1944, NKVD troops surrounded populated areas with tanks and trucks, blocking all exits. Beria reported to Stalin about the start of Operation Lentil.

Heroes

Sniper Abukhadzhi Idrisov destroyed 349 fascists. Sergeant Idrisov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Red Star, and he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

Chechen sniper Akhmat Magomadov became famous in the battles near Leningrad, where he was called “the fighter of the German occupiers.” He has more than 90 Germans on his account.

In a new place

The attitude towards special settlers in 1944-1945 in places of settlement and at work was difficult and was characterized by injustice and numerous violations of their rights by local authorities. These violations were expressed in relation to the calculation of wages and the refusal to issue bonuses for labor. Work to improve the economic structure was hampered by bureaucratic delays. According to the North Kazakhstan Regional Department of Economic Development, as of January 1, 1946, there were 3,637 Chechen families, or 14,766 people, 1,234 Ingush families, or 5,366 people, in total there were 4,871 families of special settlers in the region, or 20,132 people.